STORES across Wilmslow are hoping residents and other traders will get behind their vision to turn the town plastic bag-free.

Shoppers at Handforth’s Marks and Spencers store will soon have to pay 5p for plastic carrier bags as part of the business’ national campaign to make the country a plastic bag-free zone.

The five-year scheme will see the company become carbon neutral, stop sending waste to landfill and extend its sustainable sourcing by 2012.

Conscious of the need to get the use of carrier bags down, the town’s Waitrose store says it is also committed to minimising its impact on the environment and last year the company gave away around nine million fewer free carrier bags to customers than the year before.

A spokesman for Waitrose said: "We have been taking steps to cut plastic bag use, including trialling bagless tills in some of our shops. These trials are aimed at gauging customer reactions to a potential bagless supermarket of the future. Feedback has been very positive and we're currently deciding on our next steps.

"All of our shops have carrier bag recycling facilities for customers and many, including our Cheadle Hulme shop, also have a Quick Check self-service facility and customers using this service are provided with biodegradable jute bags."

He added: "Waitrose has signed up to the Government's Voluntary Code of Practice, which will see a number of major retailers working together to develop practical steps to reduce nationwide plastic bag usage by 25 per cent by the end of year."

Waitrose was the first retailer to launch a Bag for Life, in 1997.

The store charges 10p and replaces bags free of charge when they are worn out. Old bags are then made into ‘plaswood’ benches for local good causes. The company say Bag for Life usage has increased by nearly 63 per cent in the last year and that it recently completed a project to ensure its standard plastic bags are made from 30 per cent recycled material.

In 2004, it also introduced a 100 per cent biodegradable jute-based wine carrier bag which is 100 per cent biodegradable, and is designed for either wines or groceries. Money from the sale of each bag goes towards a London-based charity which helps provide medical facilities, educational scholarships and aids the installation of water pumps within the Spiti region of the Himalayas in India.

According to statistics carried by the media in recent weeks an estimated 13billion plastic bags are given free to shoppers in the UK every year, and the bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down. The media has reported that plastic bags pollute coastlines, kill and injuring birds, and destroy seabirds, seals, turtles and whales.

Gordon Brown late last month wrote in the Daily Mail that if shops do not take necessary steps to reduce the use of plastic bags the government will interfere.If government compulsion is needed to make the change, we will take the necessary steps, he said.